Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Jurors view Michael Jackson autopsy photo

 Conrad Murray is not expected to testify, but jurors will hear a police interview of him two days after Michael Jackson's death.Tune in to HLN for full coverage and analysis of the Conrad Murray trial and watch live, as it happens, on CNN.com/live and CNN's mobile apps.
Los Angeles (CNN) -- Michael Jackson's three children "cried and cried and cried" when an emergency room doctor told them their father was dead, Dr. Conrad Murray said in a police interview two days after the pop icon's death.
Jurors heard the last 45 minutes of the police interview Tuesdaymorning, the 10th day of Murray's involuntary manslaughter trial. Most of the audio recording was played in court Friday.
Perhaps the most disturbing moment came later when an overhead photo of Jackson's naked corpse on the autopsy table was displayed on a large screen in front of the jury. It was shown during testimony from the pathologist who ruled Jackson's death a homicide.
Jackson matriarch Katherine Jackson, who sat on the second row with daughter Rebbie Jackson for the first hour Tuesday, left the courtroom before the photograph was shown.
Dr. Christopher Rogers, who conducted the autopsy, said he ruled Jackson's death was a homicide because of Murray's reckless use of the surgical anesthetic propofol in Jackson's home to help him sleep.
"The risk outweighs the benefit," Rogers said.
He said it was possible that Murray gave Jackson an overdose, since he had no "precision dosing device" to keep Jackson asleep with propofol.
"Essentially, the doctor would be estimating how much propofol he would be giving," Rogers testified. "I think it would be easy under those circumstances for the doctor to estimate wrong and give too much propofol."
Rogers bolstered the prosecution contention that Murray used a makeshift IV setup to keep Jackson medicated and asleep.
The propofol bottle that prosecutors contend Murray used for the IV drip had a slit in the rubber top that appeared to have been made with a medical spike, not a syringe needle.
Murray could have pushed "a spike into the rubber stopper and then the propofol would flow out the end," Rogers said.
Rogers ruled out the possibility that Jackson self-administered the deadly dose of propofol during the two minutes Murray told police he was away from the singer's bedside.
Katherine Jackson was in court to hear Murray describe to detectives the reaction of her 11-year-old granddaughter, Paris, at the news that her father was dead.
"I will wake up in the morning, and I won't be able to see my daddy," Paris said, according to Murray.
Murray is not expected to testify during the trial, but the interview playback means jurors will have heard his story -- at least as he told it two days after Jackson's death.
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The prosecution could benefit from the jury hearing Murray say he was away from Jackson for just two minutes before finding him without a pulse. Phone records and witnesses showed that moment came after he spent at least 45 minutes on his cell phone.
Murray's defense, however, may gain by the more personal view jurors get of the doctor without subjecting him to prosecution questioning.
The jury on Friday heard Murray's reasons for not immediately calling 911 for help, his explanation of his much-criticized CPR techniques, and his statement that he was trying to wean Jackson off a dependency on propofol.
Tuesday's interview playback began with Murray relating how Jackson's children "really were weeping, really weeping" when they were told doctors at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center were unable to save their father.
"I hugged them all, gave comfort to Paris, comfort to Prince, comfort to Blanket, which is the last little guy, because whenever they were sick, they would always ask for Dr. Conrad," Murray said.
Murray, who treated Jackson and his children for colds and minor illnesses when they visited or lived in Las Vegas, was hired as Jackson's full-time physician just two months before his June 25, 2009, death.
"After they cried and cried and cried, then his daughter uttered a lot of words of unhappiness and, you know, she will live alone without her dad and she didn't want to be an orphan," Murray said, referring to Paris.
"She asked me, 'Dr. Murray, you said you save a lot of patients. You know, you save people with heart attacks, and you couldn't save my dad,'" he told detectives. "I said, 'I tried my best.' And she said, 'I know that, Dr. Murray. At least I know. I know you tried your best. I know you tried your best, but I'm really sad. You know, I will wake up in the morning, and I won't be able to see my daddy.'"
Murray said he also was unable to explain Jackson's death to other family members gathered in a conference room at the hospital.
"Do you know why he died?" one of them asked, Murray told police.
"My answer was 'No,' and that's the reason why I was recommending to the family to have an autopsy, because I also wanted to know," Murray said.
Prosecutors contend Jackson died because of Murray's criminal negligence, including the use of the surgical anesthetic propofol in his bedroom, without proper monitoring equipment.
The Los Angeles County coroner ruled that Jackson's death was the result of "acute propofol intoxication" in combination with several sedatives -- all drugs Murray acknowledged in the police interview that he gave Jackson in the hours before his death.
But in the portion of the interview to be heard Tuesday, Murray points the finger away from himself to other doctors.
"I was not aware of any other medications that he was taking, but I heard that he was seeing a Dr. Klein three times a week in Beverly Hills," Murray told police. "And he never disclosed that to me."
Defense lawyer Ed Chernoff contended at the start of the trial that Dr. Arnold Klein had addicted Jackson to Demerol, a narcotic pain reliever, during the singer's regular visits to his Beverly Hills dermatology clinic in the weeks before his death.
"His production team had said to me recently that his worst days in the set is when he had gone to Dr. Klein's office, which is about three times a week," Murray said in the interview. "And when he came back, he was basically wasted and required at least 24 hours for recovery."
Three earlier prosecution witnesses testified that they were aware of Jackson's frequent visits to Klein's office and that Jackson's speech would be slow and slurred afterward.
Toxicology tests did not find Demerol in Jackson's blood at the time of his death, but the defense contention is that it played a role because Jackson was unable to sleep because he was suffering from withdrawal from the drug.
Murray told police that Jackson was "showing signs of a withdrawal," but he suspected it was from propofol, which he said he was trying to wean Jackson off after two months of nightly use.
Jackson's death came after two nights of not using propofol. Murray said he gave him a series of three sedatives -- Valium, lorazepam and midazolam -- on the third night without getting him to sleep.
"It wasn't working," Murray said. "So, was he going through a withdrawal from that agent? Was it his mind that was forcing him to stay awake?"
After 10 hours of trying, Jackson begged him to give him propofol again, Murray said, which the singer called his "milk." He needed rest before an important rehearsal for his "This Is It" comeback shows.
"I've got to sleep, Dr. Conrad," Murray said Jackson pleaded to him. "I have these rehearsals to perform. I must be ready for the show in England. Tomorrow, I will have to cancel my performance, because you know I cannot function if I don't get to sleep."
By 10:40 a.m., Murray said, he gave in.
"I then decided to go ahead and give him some of the milk, so he could get a couple of hours sleep so that he could produce, because I cared about him," Murray said. "I did not want him to fail. I had no intentions of hurting him. And I was compassionate. But what I was doing, too, recognizing that Michael Jackson may have had a dependency to a substance. I was trying to wean him off."
On the recording, Murray insisted he kept a close watch on Jackson after he finally fell asleep. The physician never mentioned the long list of e-mails and calls that cell phone records later revealed.
The doctor said he left the room for about two minutes to visit the toilet. When he returned, he realized his patient had stopped breathing, Murray said.
"Immediately, I felt for a pulse and I was able to get a pulse in the femoral region," he said. "His body was warm. There was no change in color, so I assumed that everything happened quickly."
Murray told police he immediately started one-handed CPR on the bed alternately with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on Jackson.
"I couldn't lift him off the bed by myself," Murray said. "What I did was to improvise. His bed is fairly firm, so I got my left hand under his body and I compressed with my hand not moving in place."
Jackson security chief Alberto Alvarez, the first person to join Murray in the effort, testified that he questioned Murray's knowledge of CPR techniques because he was trained to put a patient on a hard surface and use two hands.
Murray said he did not call 911 for help immediately because he expected answering the emergency operator's questions would take too much time away from the resuscitation efforts.
Instead, he ran down the stairs and shouted for the chef to summon help, and he placed a call to Jackson's personal assistant, Michael Amir Williams, to ask that he send a security guard upstairs, Murray said.
Murray said he tried his best to revive Jackson.
In the portion of the interview played Friday, Murray said Jackson told him that hiring him as his personal doctor was "divine guidance."
Murray said that when he agreed to be Jackson's personal physician for his "This Is It" shows in London, he had no idea he would have to give him regular infusions of propofol.
But it was a drug Jackson told him he had used for years to get elusive sleep, he said.
"I was a bit surprised of his pharmacological knowledge," Murray told police. "He explained that he used it frequently on his tours."
During his two months on the job, he gave Jackson propofol "30 days a month, every day, with the exception of three days leading up to his death," Murray said.
If convicted of involuntary manslaughter, Murray could spend four years in a California prison and lose his medical license.

10,000 finance jobs to vanish from Wall Street

New York City could lose 10,000 financial securities jobs by the end of 2012, according to the state comptroller.NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The New York state comptroller expects Wall Street to lose 10,000 jobs by the end of 2012.
The job losses are projected to occur in New York City's securities industry from now through December, 2012, according to Eric Sumberg, press spokesman for state comptroller Thomas DiNapoli.
"It now seems likely that profits will fall sharply, job losses will continue, and bonuses will be smaller than last year," DiNapoli said in a press release. "These developments will have a rippling effect through the economy and adversely impact state and city tax collections."
The comptroller blamed the dismal outlook on "uncertainty due to the European sovereign debt crisis, a sluggish domestic economy, volatile stock markets and regulatory changes."
The comptroller's office highlighted Wall Street's strong start for 2011, noting that the securities industry has weakened considerably through the rest of the year.
Wall Street added 9,900 jobs from January 2010 and April 2011, but then lost 4,100 jobs through August.
The comptroller's report said that "job losses are likely to continue given declines in profitability and recent layoff announcements," projecting that Wall Street job cuts could total 32,000 for the period from January 2008 to the end of next year.
The member firms of the New York Stock Exchange earned $9.3 billion in the first quarter, but profits "declined sharply" in the second quarter and are expected to fall short of $18 billion for the entire year.

Millions could lose unemployment benefits

Stock prices for Wall Street banks fell in Tuesday trading, in a seesaw reaction to Monday's rally and nervousness ahead of corporate earnings from the second quarter.
Shares of JPMorgan Chase (JPMFortune 500), Goldman Sachs (GSFortune 500), Bank of America (BACFortune 500), Wells Fargo (WFCFortune 500) and Morgan Stanley (MSFortune 500) all fell by about 1%, and Citibank (CFortune 500) dropped 2%.
Nationwide, the U.S. added 103,000 jobs in September, which was stronger than expected, the federal government reported earlier this month.
But the economy has recovered only 2.1 million of the 8.6 million jobs lost since the recession began, keeping the unemployment rate frozen at 9.1%. To top of page

High court ruling means execution unlikely in 1981 cop-killing

Supporters of death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal rally in Philadelphia in November 2010.Philadelphia (CNN) -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal to get a new sentencing hearing for the killing of a Philadelphia police officer 30 years ago.
The high court rejected a request from the Philadelphia DistrictAttorney's Office to overturn the federal appeals court decision declaring the death sentence unconstitutional for Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther who was convicted in 1982 of gunning down a Philadelphia police officer.
Abu-Jamal will be automatically sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole unless Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams seeks another death sentence from a new jury. Williams had no comment Tuesday.
His attorneys, who have repeatedly argued that confusing jury instructions and the verdict form given to the jury favored a death sentence instead of life in prison, applauded the court's ruling.
"At long last, the profoundly troubling prospect of Mr. Abu-Jamal facing an execution that was produced by an unfair and unreliable penalty phase has been eliminated. Like all Americans, Mr. Abu-Jamal was entitled to a proper proceeding that takes into accountthe many substantial reasons why death was an inappropriate sentence," John Payton, director of the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, said in a statement.
Abu-Jamal's case will now return to the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas for final sentencing.
In April, Abu-Jamal was granted a new sentencing hearing by a federal appeals court, sparking a threat by the prosecutor to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.
Mumia Abu-Jamal, shown in this 1994 photo, is on death row at the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections Facility in Huntington, Pennsylvania.
Mumia Abu-Jamal, shown in this 1994 photo, is on death row at the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections Facility in Huntington, Pennsylvania.
In its 32-page decision, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals accepted defense arguments that the jury instructions at Abu-Jamal's original 1982 murder trial were unclear. The court's decision does not grant Abu-Jamal a new trial and his conviction of murder stands.
In January, the Supreme Court tossed out a lower court ruling that nullified the death sentence for Abu-Jamal. The justices ordered a federal appeals court to revisit its earlier ruling granting a new sentencing hearing. The high court last year denied Abu-Jamal's separate petition for a new trial
Abu-Jamal was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1981 killing of Officer Daniel Faulkner. Witnesses testified that Abu-Jamal shot Faulkner in the back and head after the officer pulled his brother over during a late-night traffic stop.
Abu-Jamal, once known as Wesley Cook, was wounded in the encounter and later confessed to the killing, according to other testimony.
He's been on death row at a state prison in southwest Pennsylvania, where he's been an outspoken activist from behind bars -- claiming there were procedural errors during his capital sentencing, and that too few blacks were on the jury.
The case has attracted international attention, amid charges of prosecutorial misconduct.
Abu-Jamal, a onetime radio reporter and cab driver, has been a divisive figure, with many prominent supporters arguing that racism pervaded his trial.
Others counter Abu-Jamal is using his race to try to escape responsibility for his actions. They say he has provoked community unrest for years with his writings and advocacy.

DID WE GET THE YEAR WRONG ???

Sunday, October 9, 2011

        MY OLDEST AND LAZYEST DAUGHTER LEAH LOURDES SAYAWAN,YOU WOULD HAVE TO BE DEAD TO BE ANY LAZY THAN THIS ONE.

HOW DOES A 17-YEAR-OLD KID WITH ABSOLUTELY NO CRIMINAL HISTORY GET A FEDERAL LIFE SENTENCE FOR A FIRST-TIME DRUG CRIME?

THE CASE OF UNITED STATES V. REYNOLDS WINTERSMITH, 93CR20024


Reynolds Wintersmith is the only known juvenile, first-time offender in the United States who is serving a mandatory federal life sentence for a nonviolent drug crime.


Reynolds Wintersmith has been locked away in federal prison for nearly two decades. He has never been convicted or even accused of violence. Wintersmith’s crime was that, when he was just 17, he joined a drug ring in the Rockford, Illinois area. Shockingly, Wintersmith was a first-time offender with zero criminal record when he stood, confused and scared, before the federal judge who sentenced him to die in prison. In 1994, the law required a mandatory life sentence, even though the judge wished there was some other option:


“In your particular circumstance, as I said earlier, you were 17 years old when you got involved in this thing. . . And under federal law, I have no discretion in my sentencing. Usually a life sentence is imposed in state courts when somebody has been killed or severely hurt, or you’ve got a recidivist, that is, a defendant who’s been convicted time and time again. This is your first conviction. . . I think it gives me pause to think that was the intent of Congress to put somebody away for the rest of their life. But, in any event, it’s there.”

Reynolds Wintersmith’s mandatory life sentence is fundamentally unfair. Non-violent highschoolers should not be permanently banished from our society for a first-time drug offense. In a historic ruling last year, the Supreme Court declared in Graham v. Florida: “The Constitution prohibits the imposition of a life sentence on a juvenile offender who did not commit homicide.” Less than one month after the Supreme Court’s Graham decision, on August 3, 2010, President Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act, which was designed to reduce harsh federal drug sentences. Reynolds Wintersmith is still sentenced to life in federal prison, even after the Supreme Court’s Graham decision and the Fair Sentencing Act. Federal courts have repeatedly refused to allow him any opportunity to benefit from positive changes in the law.

Justice has already been served. Even though he faces a mandatory life sentence and without any certainty that he will ever be released, Reynolds Wintersmith has made exceptional strides to become a remarkable human being. He has completed many college courses. He is certified by the U.S. Department of Labor as a Teacher’s Aide and tutors other inmates about how to further their education. He is a certified victim impact counselor. He is a prisoner companion for the federal inmate suicide prevention program. And he is a federal community reentry mentor who counsels prisoners about how to be productive members of society when they are released. Ironically and unfortunately, community reentry is not an opportunity Reynolds shares with the prisoners he mentors.


Permanent banishment is not the answer for nonviolent juvenile first offenders. Reynolds Wintersmith is the face of a flawed “War on Drugs” and the excessively harsh juvenile sentencing practices that were a collateral consequence of that war. He is also a face of maturity and rehabilitation. It costs the federal government $27,000 per year to keep Reynolds Wintersmith in prison. Taxpayers will have spent millions of dollars to keep this juvenile, nonviolent first offender locked up. Reynolds Wintersmith's case boils down to a single, fundamental question: Should a 17-year-old kid with no criminal record be permanently banished from society for a first-time, nonviolent drug offense?


If you believe the answer to this question is NO, then the Justice For Wintersmith Coalition wants to hear from you.


For questions or to learn how you can help secure for justice for Reynolds Wintersmith, please email: justiceforwintersmith@gmail.com or call 312-880-9013

http://www.justiceforwintersmith.blogspot.com